Offer Vault and Affspy are two sites that track various offers in the different affiliate networks.  I personally like Offer Vault better because of the fact that all the payouts and everything are laid out in front of you.  In AffSpy, you have to click through the offer to see which networks are promoting it.  I guess it’s a matter of preference but that’s the big difference to me.

I did a search on “dating” and here’s what it came up with:

Looking for a specific offer “Omaha Steaks”: 

You can see that the data is different. Offer Vault shows MaxBounty while AffSpy doesn’t have MaxBounty.  The data may not be consistent between both networks, but It’s good to have both, so sign up now! It’s free!

http://blog.clickbooth.com/2008/09/harald-andersons-exciting-new-webinar/

A buddy of mine transcribed the joke for you guys: 

This story involves a young man whose name is Matthew who goes into a confessional hopper to ask for forgiveness for his sins. 

He steps into the box, kneels down and whispers, “Father, forgive me for I have sinned. I’ve been with a loose woman from your parish and spent all last night indulging in sins of the flesh.”

The priest says, “Is that you Matthew?” 

He responds, “Yes Father, it is I.”

After a short pause, the priest says, “Go on my son, tell me more.”

“Well Father, you know we were dancing, drinking wine, and next thing I know, we spent 6 hours indulging pleasures of the flesh.”, says Matthew

“Well I see my son, tell me more. Who was the woman you were with?”, said the priest

“Sorry Father I cannot tell you that, for I cannot sully her reputation.”

“Was it Eileen O’Shaunessy?”, asks the priest. “No father it was not.”

“Was it Brenda Mahoney?”, asks the priest. “No father, it was not.”

“Was it Jill O’Flannery?” asks the priest. “No Father, it was not.”

The priest very patiently paused and breathed a heavy sigh. 

“Alright my son, I admire your integrity and you are a child of god, but you must atone for your sins. Say five Our Fathers, four hail marries and all is forgiven.”

Matthew thanked the priest and quietly returned to his pew to atone for his sins. As he pulled out his rosemary beads, his friend slid next to him and asked, “What’d you get?”

Matthew said, “Five Our Fathers, four hail marries and THREE REALLY GREAT LEADS.”

Now go make some money! lol

Anyway, this post isn’t about jacuzzis, but about twitter bots.  What is a twitter bot, you ask?  It’s basically an automated program that takes information from a direct message and does something with it.  For example, for you Google Calendar fans out there, there is a Google Calendar twitter bot that will post an event to your Google Calendar.  For example:

d gCal Write a post about twitter bots tonight 7pm

d gCal Make sure to buy some more soy milk and protein powder tomorrow

Another one is a Weather Twitter Bot.  You just direct message this bot and it returns with the forecast:

d forecast 90210

d forecast Los Angeles, CA

Cool huh?? Anyway, here’s a couple lists of some other twitter bots that I’ve found:

10 Most Useful Twitter Bots List

10 Bots to Help You Get the Most From Twitter

If you’ve never heard of Traffic Tactics, the basic idea is that they use media buying to generate tons of traffic online.  According to them, banner advertising is NOT dead.  In fact, media buying is done by big name companies all the time (You’ve probably seen the NetFlix banner all over the place).

They focus more on banner advertising rather than the usual PPC marketing that we see from other Internet Marketers.  The cool thing about banner advertising is that you can virtually get an unlimited amount of traffic directly from web sites or through ad networks like Casale Media, Tribal Fusion, etc.

Now, I almost was able to ask a question on the phone, but they had to cut it short because the seminar was getting pretty lengthy.  I wanted to ask them about my own experience with buying media.  About a month or two ago, I experimented with AdBrite, which is a self-serve ad network.  You can buy media at a CPC or CPM basis which is pretty cool.  I noticed they mentioned it in the “Media Buying Secrets” guide (which is free when you sign up for their free newsletter) and I decided to try it out.  I basically wanted to find out what I was doing wrong. I think I have a better idea with it now, so I guess I’ll give it a try again later on.

Listening to the seminar tonight, I realized that I think I was optimizing for the wrong criteria.  I was optimizing for which ads had a higher CTR when I should’ve been optimizing for higher CONVERSION RATES.  If a particular ad converts better, but has a lower CTR, that would be the winner right?

Another interesting point they made tonight is the emphasis of SPLIT-TESTING.  They split test so much that they even split-test PEOPLE.  Sounds odd, but one of the questions that was asked tonight was about where to find a good designer.  Lupe says to split-test designers and see which one does a better job.

Come to think of it, imagine if the working world was like that… each company hires 2 people for the same position and will keep the better one - hmmm, I wonder if they do that already.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my thoughts about them.  If you want to learn more about media buying and banner advertising, sign up for their free newsletter and you can get access to their free guide and hours of free video seminars.

Check it out now!

http://www.traffictactics.com
http://www.traffictacticsblog.com

• Writing explosive ad copy is an important skill to have as a marketer.  Your ad copy needs to entice people to click and to buy whatever you’re promoting.  TrafficTacticsBlog.com has a nice list of 77 “silver bullets” to enhance your copy.

• In addition to the 77 “silver bullets” above, here are more examples from PPCFool.com of great copywriting.  The idea is to impose “shock” to induce action from your visitors.  By using shocking keywords, you can startle your visitors to increase CTR.

• And here are more “magical” keywords from the TrafficTactics.com team

• How does the 20/80 rule apply to PPC Marketing? Basically, from launch to optimization, you should be left with a handful of keywords to optimize your campaigns on.  Derek at ClickConsultants.com explains how the 80/20 rule applies to keywords in your PPC marketing campaigns.

• You should always consider the structure of your PPC campaigns in order to maximize your ROI and conversions.  Joe from PPCHero.com talks about how a poor PPC structure will make your campaign suffer.

• Here is something that I haven’t had too much experience with.. which is Facebook ads.  It’s pretty hot to get into right now, although, it’s getting much more saturated as more and more blogs talk about it.  Anyway, Zac Johnson talks about split testing different pictures in your ad copy. It’s interesting to see how each picture can make big differences!

So that’s it! Now go out there and make some money!

Anyway, this article is basically about persistence and being able to stay determined in reaching for your goals.

You’ve heard the saying, “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.”

I see that sentiment everywhere: in business, in investing and in people’s personal lives. Ask someone, “Do you want to be rich?” and they say, “Of course!” But ask them, “Are you willing to do what it takes?” and all too often, you’ll get a blank stare. To me, the difference between someone who achieves her goals and realizes her dreams and someone who does not is that one is willing to do what it takes to get there, and the other is not.

In an earlier article I wrote about the four types of people in the world: Those who must be right, those who must be comfortable, those who must win and those who must be liked. I’m a “must win” kind of girl. And in order to win, sometimes you have to do things that are uncomfortable, difficult and even scary. The most revealing test of a winner (or loser) is how she responds to adversity. What does she do under pressure? Does she back down? Does she quit? Does she roll up her sleeves and get to work? Bottom line: Does she keep moving forward? How you respond when things get difficult is the difference between being a rich woman or a poor woman.

If you set goals at the start of this year, how are you faring? Are you doing what you need to do to achieve them? Are you or is someone you trust holding you accountable to make your goals?

Sometimes You Need a Coach

That is the beauty of having a coach. I have coaches in many areas of my life: business, investing, presentations, fitness and personal development. I even have a television coach. My coaches hold me accountable when my natural tendency is to take it easy. My weakness (one of many) is that I’m essentially lazy. So I do my best to surround myself with coaches, mentors and friends who push me harder than I push myself at times.

For example, I was working out at the gym with my trainer, JR, when he said, “Kim, pick up the red ball for your next set of exercises.” I walked across the gym and leaned over to pick up the ball, expecting it to be pretty light. In fact, I realized, it was a lot heavier than the blue and yellow balls I was used to. I hesitantly walked back to JR, red ball in hand. “OK,” he said, “I want you to do 40 lunges with the ball over your head. Next, do 20 sit-ups on the incline holding the red ball. And last, 20 squats with the ball.” I gave him a questioning look and set off to do my lunges, sit-ups and squats. Afterward, I came back to JR huffing and puffing, but proud of my accomplishment and ready to move onto the next—and easier—exercise. Instead JR said, “Good job. Now give me two more sets.”

“Two more sets?” I protested. “This red ball is heavy!”

JR smiled and said, “Do you want me to take it easy on you? Are you paying me to hold your hand or are you paying me for results? It’s up to you.”

I quietly walked away with my red ball and began my next set of lunges.

That’s when I realized that to get results in anything, you’ve got to reach for the red ball. So often, we go for the lighter challenges or goals—the yellow or blue balls—because it’s easier and more comfortable. But in order to get the result that we want, we’ve got to do some heavy lifting and stretch for the red ball.

So the “Red Ball” question to ask yourself is this:

What is the one thing in my life, today, that if I did, I know would dramatically improve my life?

Once you know the answer to that question, ask yourself: Am I willing to do what it takes to do that one thing?

That may be your red ball and the one you reach for next.

Investor, entrepreneur and author of Rich Woman, Kim Kiyosaki educates women about money and investing through books, speaking engagements, a PBS TV show and  RichWoman.com. Kim and her husband Robert created the CASHFLOW® board games and own The Rich Dad Company.

This article originally appeared in WomenEntrepreneur.com. Reprinted with permission from the author.

http://www.goodkeywords.com/products/keywordpad/

What I’m going to demonstrate is how I do keyword grouping with this tool.  The first thing I did was get a broad range of keywords from Wordze.  I basically just typed in the word ‘debt’ and it returned a list of 3,334 keywords. You can check out that list here:

WZ_debt.txt

Anyway, the first thing I do is “IMPORT” this list into KeywordPad.

Then I “Delete …Duplicates” and “Clean… Unwanted Characters” and Clean… Trailing/Leading Chars”

At this point, I need to know what keywords to group it by.  So first I “Modify… Sort…Ascending” to view the list.

The next step is to start creating a “Base Keyword” list that I want to group my keywords by.  Since I’m using YSM to test my campaign, I can afford to have larger ad groups.  If I was using Google Adwords, I would limit my keyword groups to 100-200 keywords for each ad group.

Here are the keyword groupings that I chose for this list:

debt consolidation
debt collection
credit card debt
debt relief
credit card
debt management
debt free
debt reduction
out of debt
bad debt

In order to group, I use the “Highlight…Entries That Contain… Words Anywhere” function

Then I either “Export… Highlighted Words To Another List…” Or “Export… Highlighted Words To A Text File…”

I also have to “Delete… Only Highlighted Entries” to make sure the duplicate keywords don’t end up in other ad groups.

What I end up with is these keyword groups:

debt_consolidation.txt
debt_collection.txt
credit_card_debt.txt
debt_relief.txt
credit_card.txt
debt_management.txt
debt_free.txt
debt_reduction.txt
out_of_debt.txt
bad_debt.txt

RESOURCES

If you want to learn more about keyword research and keyword grouping, I recommend the following links:

Keyword Research : Go Deep or Going Wide First?

Keyword Research Secrets to Explode Your Affiliate Business

Uber Keyword Research

Think Outside the Box : Actually Don’t Think At All

Generating Pay Per Click Keywords

So that’s it! I’ve found KeywordPad to help a lot especially when working with huge keyword lists over 10k.  It’s a tool that’s great for newbies especially, since you don’t have to spend a dime on some complicated and expensive keyword tool.

Anyway, If you enjoyed this tutorial, go ahead and bookmark it or send me a comment with your thoughts!

Now I know business is not for everyone, but I really believe if you put your mind into it, you can accomplish anything.  I knew that my friend played high school sports before and I knew how strenuous that can be.  Competing in sports is a great example of accomplishing a difficult task.  In sports, you have to tell yourself to physically compete with other players who also want to win.  You have to mentally drive yourself to exhaustion to endure the physical pain to accomplishing your goal of winning.

This relates to having a positive mindset. If you think you CAN do it, you’re right.  If you think you CAN’T do it, you’re also right.

My proposition is this: Start telling yourself you can accomplish anything.  Be a problem solver.  Ask yourself, “How do I do ______?”  Stop thinking, “I can’t do it” or “This is too hard” or “I quit”.  Once you start believing that you can accomplish anything, you can apply it to all sorts of things that don’t involve business.

• Want to learn to play a musical instrument?
• Want to play a sport?
• Want to learn how to build something?
• Want to make money online?
• Want to start a business?

Believe in what you’re doing, push through the obstacles and you’ll eventually reach your goal.  Failure is not a point at which you stop, it’s a lesson in changing your approach.

I’d love to hear stories of business or non-business accomplishments you’ve had.

What have you accomplished lately?

So I went through Google looking for phrases to discover more about my niche.  As I was doing that I put them in a mind mapping software called Freemind.  This software is free and you can get it at:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Anyway, here is the mind map that I came up with for the debt relief campaign

Now, I didn’t just combine words and just throw them in a list.  I basically used these to create a base keyword list and started plugging it into keyword tools like Wordtracker, Wordze, and the Adwords Keyword Tool.

I ended up with around ~50k, but after grouping them by 1,2,3-kw phrases, I ended up with a list of ~27k keywords.  I just re-imported them back into Yahoo and YSM declined about 6-7k, which left me with 19k in my campaign.

To sum it up, it really helps to discover the terminology and wording used in your niche.  Use it as a guideline and start plugging them into the keyword tools.  Use your brain, use the search engines and then use the keyword tools.

Top Five Motivational Sales Speeches [NSFW]
http://www.afftoolbox.com/2008/08/10/top-five-motivational-sales-speeches/

5 Mistakes I’ve Learned from in PPC Affiliate Marketing
http://www.tylercruz.com/5-mistakes-ive-learned-from-in-ppc-affiliate-marketing/

Formula of a winning PPC ad
http://www.cdfnetworks.com/formula-of-a-winning-ppc-ad/

Ten Thousand Dollars
http://www.afftoolbox.com/2008/08/07/ten-thousand-dollars/

How I got started…
http://www.ppcfool.com/beginners/how-i-got-started/

Twitter Sets 2000 Follower Limitation
http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/08/12/twitter-sets-2000-follower-limitation/